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Thursday, March 29, 2012

At today's Outer Planet Analysis Group (OPAG) meeting, more
details of NASA's study of cheaper Europa flagship missions were
presented. The attendees also had a
lively discussion of which of three mission concepts NASA should concentrate on
for further analysis.

At the last OPAG meeting last Fall, the study team presented
a flyby spacecraft that would focus on remote sensing studies requiring power
and data hungry instruments and an orbiter that would conduct those studies
that could only be done from Europan orbit. (See this post for a description of the orbiter and multiple-flyby concepts.) At that meeting, early ideas for a Europa lander were presented. (See this post for both background on the earlier concept and a description of a high priority location to land at.)

Members of the study team today presented a more mature
concept for an Europan lander. The early
ideas included a very simple carrier craft that would deliver two landers into
orbit about that moon. Two landers
provided redundancy in case one crashed.
With further analysis, the study team members have concluded that high
resolution imaging is needed to find a safe landing site. Europa is so rough that simple redundancy
isn't a viable plan.

The new concept has a much more capable orbiter with a high
resolution camera to image the surface at sub-meter resolution (which
would put it in the class of the HiRISE camera currently in orbit about Mar). Images would quickly be acquired of a small
number of preselected possible landing sites to find at least one area 100x100
meters that would be flat enough to enable a safe landing.
Advanced precision landing technologies would be used to guide the
lander to a landing location as small as a hectare (2.5
acres) and then further analyze that target location during descent to find the safest spot within that location. Once the lander was
safely down, the orbiter would act as a communications relay (although the
lander would have its own backup communications capability)

The lander would conduct three types of studies. It would image the local site to enable
scientists to select sampling locations and to understand the processes that
created the surface. A robot arm
would drill into the surface to collect samples from as deep as 10 cm to get at ice that had not been altered by Jupiter's intense radiation field. A mass spectrometer and possibly a Raman
spectrometer would be used to analyze the sample composition. Seismometers and a magnetometer would be used
to study Europa's interior by measuring seismic activity and the induced magnetic field created by the subsurface ocean's interaction with Jupiter's
magnetosphere.

After the lander concept was presented, the overall study's
team leader, Bob Pappalardo of JPL, presented the wrap up. The two key slides were the estimated cost
and risk of each concept and a checklist of questions that each of the concept
missions could address about Europa.

The estimated costs of each mission, not including a launch
vehicle that would add approximately $275M to the total, were:

Europa orbiter - $1.6B (low risk)

Europa multiple-flyby - $1.9B (low risk)

Europa lander - $2.8B-$3.5B (high risk)

The multiple flyby craft's higher cost compared to the
orbiter results from both requiring more capable instruments and spacecraft
systems and from the much longer mission duration creating higher operating
costs. A group at Aerospace
Corporation did independent costs analyses for the orbiter and multiple-flyby
missions and came up with similar estimated costs.

They study team recognized that at best NASA will at some
future time go forward with only one of these concepts. None would answer all the high priority
questions by itself. For example,
characterizing Europa's ocean and its interface with the overlying ice shell
and underlying rocky core requires either the orbiter or the lander. Understanding the structure and composition
of the ice shell would require either the heavy, data hungry instruments of the
flyby craft for global studies or the lander to characterize conditions at one
location.

The meeting attendees spent almost an hour discussing which
of these missions they believe would provide the greatest advance in the study
of Europa. No clear answer emerged, in
part because OPAG is chartered by NASA to analyze plans and proposals but not
to provide advice. (Note: It's not clear
to me how you can cleanly separate the two.)
Pappalardo stated that he felt that the multiple-flyby spacecraft would
provide the most Europa science for the dollar.
Most of the participants also seemed to lean towards the multiple-flyby
option as their preference. (While it
was not discussed, the multiple-flyby spacecraft with its highly capable remote
sensing instruments also should be better able to study Jupiter and the other
moons than the less capable instruments planned for the orbiter.)

Examples of a possible set of flyby ground tracks at Europa for the multiple-flyby spacecraft. Credit: JPL

Editorial Thoughts: The study team has shown that there are
two small Flagship (<$2B) class missions that are low risk that could start
development without additional technology development. This is in
sharp contrast the previously planned Jupiter Europa Orbiter with its >$4B
estimate. Various strategies such as
using solar panels instead of plutonium power supplies or international
collaboration might reduce the cost to NASA for either the orbiter or
multiple-flyby missions.

The studies also show that viable mission concepts are
outside the $1B budget cap of the New Frontiers program. This isn't surprising. The Juno New Frontiers mission that is en route
to orbit Jupiter has a cost of $1.1B.
The proposed European JUICE Ganymede orbiter (which would also flyby
Europa and Callisto) would have a cost of at least $1.3B. (I've read that ESA increased the cost caps
for its Large mission proposals, but don't know by how much.) Other studies have found similar costs for minimal Titan and Europan missions. The outer planets are expensive to reach and study.

Unfortunately, NASA's projected budgets do not include beginning
funding for any planetary flagship missions until at least the end of this
decade. We remain dependent on the selection of the Discovery Titan TiME lake probe and/or the European JUICE proposals to continue the
exploration of the outer solar system once the Cassini and Juno missions end in
2017.

In the meantime, I hope that NASA will select one of the
Europa mission options for continued low level study so that when the budget
situation eventually improves, it can be ready to begin development.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Artist's concepts for the joint Indian-Russian Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft stack and the Indian rover planned for the mission

This past week, India formally proposed to fund its first
Mars mission to be launched next year.
News reports have also stated that China is planning its own,
independent Mars mission with a launch date as early as 2013. Both nations have successfully delivered and
operated spacecraft to lunar orbit. Mars
missions will demonstrate a new level of technical competence.

Both nations also have plans to continue their lunar
exploration. China’s are more ambitious,
with a planned lander that will also deliver a 100 kilogram rover to the
surface next year. (The Opportunity
rover currently on Mars weighs 185 kilograms.)
That mission would be followed by one that will return up to 2 kilograms
of lunar soil to Earth. This mission
would be technically ambitious with an ascent vehicle transferring the sample
canister to an orbiting craft that would then return the entry capsule to
Earth.

India also plans a 15 kilogram lunar rover as part of a
joint mission with Russia in which the latter will supply the landing vehicle
to explore the surface near the lunar south pole. The date for this mission has been pushed
back from 2014 to 2016 because of design difficulties with the Russian lander
following the failure of the Russian Phobos-Grunt mission. (The news reports that discussed Russia
indefinitely delaying its planetary missions except for the joint ExoMars
missions with ESA did not mention the status of the joint mission with India.) India will also provide an orbiter for the
mission.

Little information is available for most of these missions
(at least that I can find on the web using English language searches). For example, we know that the Indian Martian
spacecraft will have an elliptical orbit and will carry up to 25 kilograms of instruments. India has released more information on its lunar
lander mission, Chandrayaan-2, including a list of two instruments for the
rover and five instruments for the orbiter.

Editorial Thoughts:
In the past, the sophistication of planetary missions was often
constrained by the availability of technology.
China and India are fortunate to be entering the planetary exploration
game at a time when advanced technologies allow them to plan an ambitious
series of missions in their first decade of lunar and planetary
exploration. Both countries have excellent
engineering skills. These early missions
will give them the experience to plan even more ambitious missions in the
following decade. China’s proposed lunar
sample return would be particularly ambitious, requiring a lander, ascent
vehicle, orbiter that can rendezvous with the ascent vehicle, and an Earth return
capsule that can withstand high speed re-entry.
With these technologies, China could mount sample return missions from
asteroids, comets, or the moons of Mars.
Many of these capabilities would also be useful for a Mars sample
return, although China would need to develop a Martian landing system
(reasonably hard for a payload that would include a return rocket) and the
rocket that could ascend from the Martian surface to orbit (hard).

I am confused by the press accounts that announced funding
for India’s Mars mission and give the launch date as 2013. I don’t see how a mission can be architected,
designed, built, and tested in that time.
Perhaps considerable engineering work has already been done? If any of you know more, please leave a comment.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

In past years, I have tried to keep discussions of budgets
to a minimum in this blog. While this is
a nerdy admission of my own (but not the one that is the subject of this post),
I find budgets fascinating. In my past life
of planning product roadmaps for a high tech company, I learned to focus on budgets. They
were either an enabler for the projects I wanted to see done or a
roadblock. That is also true for each
space agency’s planetary exploration roadmap.
(One senior planetary scientist once said he used to skip the project
organization charts for proposed missions; now they are what gets most of his
attention because who is on the team enables what can be done.)

However, I recognize that few others share this interest in
budgets. I had planned to have one or
two posts when the President proposed NASA’s FY13 budget and then maybe another
one next Fall when Congress passed the final version. This year, of course, NASA’s proposed
planetary budget was a nasty shock for the planetary community and those who
follow it.

The “good” news is that the story continues. Instead of fading into obscurity, Congress
and the planetary community continue to express their unhappiness with the
proposed plan. (I wish that were also
true for the cuts proposed for ecological science where I do my professional
research. Things could get ugly for the
Kane family budget in a couple of years when my current projects complete.) Congress, of course, can restore part or all
of the planetary program budget cuts.

Today, two events occurred that received a fair amount of
press. First, at the Lunar and Planetary
Science Conference, NASA’s science managers discussed the budget cuts with the
science community. (As is their job,
they defended the proposed plan.) NadiaDrake at Science News has a nice summary of the discussion as does Paul Rincon at the BBC.

However, the surprising admission came from NASA’s head,
Charlie Bolden, at testimony before Congress, where he was grilled about the proposed
cuts in a “heated” discussion with key Congressmen. Here is how Space Policy Online described the admission: “[Congressman] Schiff assiduously attempted to get Bolden
to say that the Mars cuts were imposed on NASA by the Office of Management
and Budget (OMB), but Bolden insisted the decision was his. He also
admitted that he had not known that the 2016 and 2018 missions with ESA
would not actually have returned a sample to Earth. The 2018
mission only would have collected and stored (cached) samples, but could
not return them to Earth -- a hugely expensive proposition.
Bolden said that everyone apparently knew that but him. He made the
same admission at the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) Science Committee
meeting two weeks ago where he revealed that he had a long conversation with
then OMB Director (now White House Chief of Staff) Jack Lew while under the
misimpression that the 2016 and 2018 missions would return a sample, an effort
that would indeed have significant budget implications.”

Editorial Thoughts: I did find it surprising that the head of
NASA decided to kill a major mission and leave NASA’s premier partner, the
European Space Agency, in the lurch by cancelling NASA’s participation in the
ExoMars program. As I thought about it
more, however, I was less surprised.
From Bolden’s point of view, NASA’s science program works well, with the
exception of the James Webb Space Telescope’s budget, which suffered galloping
cost overruns. I don’t follow the human spaceflight program in detail, but my impression is that it’s confused and underfunded. NASA is attempting to simultaneously develop
two new human spaceflight systems, one in house and one through commercial
companies. The problems are on the
human spaceflight side, and that likely gets almost all of Bolden’s attention.

I also, as I’ve relooked at the budget proposal, I believe
that the majority of the cut to planetary program is going to help fund the
human spaceflight program (with the rest, about a third,
going to fund cost overruns on JWST).
This thought isn’t original with me – I saw it first in some pointed
questions in a Congressional hearing that essentially stated the same. The BBC article mention earlier states, "

The FY2013 budget proposal shifts funds to human spaceflight and space technology, in line with the agency's major commitments going forward to fund the development of a huge new rocket and capsule system to take astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit to destinations such as the Moon and asteroids."

As I’ve said before, it’s my guess that Congress will
restore some but not all of the proposed cuts by making cuts elsewhere at NASA.
Say that the planetary program gets half
the cut back, around $150M. (Over five
years, that would pay for a Discovery mission, including the launch, with some
left over.) What does NASA do with the
additional money? The chance to
participate in the ExoMars program has left the building, so to speak. There’s no alternative Mars or outer planets
mission that I know of ready to take that level of funding starting next
year. Planetary missions have long lead
times of analysis before they begin development where the serious money is
spent.

My thought: NASA will select one Discovery mission late this
spring from three candidate missions. If
Congress restores funds, then perhaps NASA could select a second Discovery
mission next year from among these candidates.
Each of the three candidate missions would be ready to begin development
almost immediately. (Beginning a new
round of competition for a new list of candidates would require around two
years before the selected mission could begin development.)

I don’t know if this is possible (there are likely peak
funding issues), but it would address what to me is the biggest loss in the
proposed planetary cuts. The bedrock of
the planetary program, per the recommendations of the Decadal Survey, is a vigorous
Discovery program. With the cuts, the
flight rate drops from the recommended five missions per decade to something
like two to refund a Mars program later this decade that is currently undefined and not oriented around returning samples to Earth.

While the cuts to NASA’s Mars program have received the bulk
of the attention in the press and in Congressional hearings (at least as
reported by the press), that is only half the story. The key question to me is how to use the
funding eventually approved by Congress to implement the most balanced program possible
that addresses the science community’s highest priority questions.

Friday, March 16, 2012

Conflicting news reports in the Russian media state that Russia's space agency has either cancelled or postponed plans for future planetary missions (except apparently the joint ExoMars mission with ESA). These missions include the Venera-D Venus lander and orbiter as well as a number of other missions (for example, to Mercury). No specific reason is given, although one article makes the point that the decision has come after the failure of the Phobos-Grunt mission to return samples from the Martian moon Phobos.

The following two links are Google translations of Russian sites; as the translated titles suggest, the translation can be choppy but generally can be followed:

Editorial Thoughts: This cancellation or indefinite postponment is disappointing but not unexpected after the Phobos-Grunt failure. There were a number of missions on the Russian wishlist, more than either the better funded NASA or ESA programs could had carried out. Plans for the Venera-D mission appear to have been reasonably far along. I am disappointed by the loss of this mission, since it would have been the only chance for a landing on Venus this decade.

You may have noticed much more limited coverage of the Russian, Chinese, and Indian planetary programs in my blog than for the US, European, and Japanese programs. All space programs have long wish lists of missions. I've learned which sources to use to distinguish the approved and likely missions from the latter group of space agencies but not from the former group. For example, a friend has forwarded me a presentation on Chinese plans for planetary exploration that include some very likely near term lunar missions and some missions that are at best years away including a Martian sample return. While the Chinese may end up being the first to return samples from Mars, they (and everyone else) currently lack the technology to conduct the mission. I can't see such a mission before the second half of the next decade, which puts its in the indefinite future after several changes in government leadership and several economic cycles.

I categorize future plans for planetary missions into three categories:

Missions approved and funded by the appropriate political systems (usually national governments but a set of national governements in the case of ESA)

Missions firmly on the roadmap of a space agency for which it has concrete plans to develop needed technologies and to request formal approval and funding. I include in this category missions that are in competition for selection through a competitive program such as NASA's Discovery program or ESA's Large science mission program.

Missions an agency would someday like to fly and include on their long term roadmaps to serve as guides in their planning and technology development. Approval is well beyond the current planning horizon.

In general, I focus on missions in the first two categories, although I occassionally discuss an interesting mission concept. (And sometimes missions can't be neatly categorized: NASA is "committed" to a Mars sample return mission and to a Europa mission, although their approval is always just over the planning horizon.) My less extensive coverage of the programs of Russia, China, and India reflect my more limited ability to distinguish likely missions from wish lists. If any of you can point me towards good sources of information, I'd be most grateful.

The European Space Agency's new joint ExoMars with Russia has been approved to proceed by the agency's ruling council. The new program includes a 2016 orbiter and at least one lander and the 2018 ExoMars rover. Russia will provide launch vehicles for both missions and instruments. Russia will also provide a nuclear power source for the demonstration lander, allowing it to operate for at least months on the Martian surface. The 2016 orbiter will still include instruments to study trace gases in the atmosphere including methane.

The new plan follows NASA's withdrawal from the program, resulting in the loss of NASA's landing expertise. As a result, ESA will fly a demonstration lander to develop and prove its own landing technology in 2016. Presumably this lander will provide the basis for the 2018 rover landing system.

Total cost of the two missions for ESA is expected to grow from 1B euros to 1.2B euros, of which only 850M euros have been committed by ESA's member states. The ruling council has stated that ExoMars is a top priority. Different press accounts suggest that the additional funds may be sought from the member states (which are already being requested for additonal funding for other programs) or from elsewhere in the science budget. The Space News account suggest that ESA may forgo its proposed next large (~1B euro) science mission since NASA has declined to participate and help fund all three missions in competition. (One of those proposals would be for a Ganymede orbiter/Europa-Callisto flyby mission.)

Editorial Thoughts: Today's press accounts leave many details unclear. Previous accounts, for example, have talked about the Russians providing additional landers beyond ESA's demonstration lander. There are also no specifics on which instruments will be carried by the 2016 orbiter or the demonstration lander. (Maybe, finally, a capable seismometer will be delivered to the Martian surface now that the demonstration lander will have a long lived power source? In this case, depending on the fate of the proposed Discovery InSight mission, the ExoMars lander might either partially replace or supplement the InSight lander's capabilities.)

I have always felt that the ExoMars missions are important to continuing the exploration of Mars. Methane in the Martian atmosphere is a mystery, both as to whether it is really there (data suggests, probably) and its source locations and orgins (geochemical or biological). The rover will search for organics on the surface at a second location after NASA's Mars Science Laboratory and will analyze samples gathered from up to two meters below the harsh surface.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the proposed cuts to NASA's planetary program are creating more of a ruckus than I remember for any science program since the cancellation of the super collider. Press accounts of the dispute are common, including a substantial piece in the New York Times. Key Congressmen have sharply questioned NASA's management over the proposed cuts and have blocked the administration's proposed cuts to the planetary program for the current budget year. (In the US, approved budgets are the law of the land and cannot be changed by the administration without approval by the appropriate Congressional committees. It is common when a new budget proposal seeks a new direction for the adminstration to ask for and receive permission to reallocated current funding to reflect the expected change. In this case, the Congressional committees refused permission saying that changes of this magnitude should be fully debated in Congress first.)

Press accounts suggest that the key tradeoff in Congressional deliberations will be between funding for commercial manned spaceflight systems and planetary exploration. The adminstration proposed substantial increases for the former and cuts for the latter. Congress' priorities appear to be the reverse, suggesting a heated debate between the two branches of government.

About Me

You can contact me at futureplanets1@gmail.com with any questions or comments.
I have followed planetary exploration since I opened my newspaper in 1976 and saw the first photo from the surface of Mars. The challenges of conceiving and designing planetary missions has always fascinated me. I don't have any formal tie to NASA or planetary exploration (although I use data from NASA's Earth science missions in my professional work as an ecologist).
Corrections and additions always welcome.